Library Leaves is published online by the staff of the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library. In keeping with our mission to educate, support the study of the Arboretum and living collections, and share botanical knowledge, this blog will offer a closer look at our unique collections, upcoming events, and ongoing projects. Keep reading and continue to visit us online and in person! Follow us on Twitter, @AAhortlib.

In addition to our archives, photographs, rare floras, and journals, the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library holds a variety of natural history monographs, including plant lore. Plant lore is a cultural and mythological study, which examines the historical human relationship with its natural habitat, which is a central tenet of the human-plant connection. The utility of […]

When our founding director Charles Sprague Sargent assumed leadership of the organization in 1873, the Arnold Arboretum as we know it today [pdf] was unformed. Benjamin Bussey’s mansion and outbuildings still stood on the grounds but there were no formal roads to draw the public into the landscape. Sargent set about immediately planning the new […]

Rhododendrons are inextricably linked to the history of our landscape. Horticulturalists had endeavored to hybridize these colorful flowering shrubs for northern and western gardens for well-over a hundred years, and they have proved worth the effort because of their evergreen variety and beauty in the landscape. Starting in the mid-1880s, Arboretum staff methodically evaluated these […]

Magnolia trees surrounding the Hunnewell Building at the Arnold Arboretum unleash their flowering with shameless abandon throughout the month of April—and why not? This ancient family of deciduous trees is easy to fall in love with, if not for their fragrance then their variety—they subdivide into hundreds of cultivars and hybrids, and their colors vary […]

April is the perfect month to catch the bright flowering of Forsythia in our Living Collections. Spring is manifest in these golden, deciduous shrubs, and the Visual Archives at the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library curates brilliant Ektachrome color photographs of Forsythia, available online. Forsythia is named after William Forsyth (1737–1804), the Scottish horticulturalist and a […]

Harvard University began its involvement with topical botany in Cuba in 1899 when Edwin Atkins (1850–1926), owner of the Soledad Plantation in Cuba, met with Harvard Professors Oakes Ames and George Goodale and established The Harvard Botanic Station for Tropical Research and Sugar Cane Investigation. In 1920, the ties between the garden and Harvard became […]

Over the past six months the Arnold Arboretum Library has been engaged in a project to send old runs of journals to Harvard’s book depository facility in Southboro, MA. For the most part, the journals which have been sent out have been those which are available online through various sources such as Google Books, Biodiversity […]

For many years, the library has been very lucky to have a number of Simmons students from the School of Library and Information Sciences come intern with us. Students are placed at the Arboretum through their introductory archive classes, where they must finish a number of hours to receive course credit. Multiple projects have been […]

I was fortunate to intern with the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library from January to February of this year, during which time I promised to write a two-part series on Ernest Henry Wilson’s A Naturalist in Western China. After a (very) long break due to other academic work, I’m finally back to finish the series with […]

Passersby strolling along Hemlock Hill Road are struck by the amazing view of the conifer collection, sprawling above the open glade known as Kent Field, across from Bussey Brook. Among the pines, spruces, and firs is one of the Arboretum’s finest specimens of giant sequoia or redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum). This native of California’s Sierra Nevada […]